I always had a lot of empathy for the deep outcast weirdos in school. I was kind of like the more sociable weirdo, but I was always talking to the real weird ones.
My athleticism was really the core to social acceptance, because in those days the overwhelming number of students came from more of a public school background than I did.
If we could support school curricula about social class, we might discuss the full complexity of 'wealth' within the parameters of our children's educational lives. Out of these lesson plans, we might talk more about what society values - and whether it rewards the right things.
I am looking at opening a school of social engineering. The McAfee School of Social Engineering has a nice ring to it. Beyond that, it is hard to say what life will bring my way.
In high school, I made friends with people in every social group. Or at least that's how I perceived it. I thought they liked me. Maybe they didn't!
The fact that he didn't get credit for a while is more the story of social injustice. But his own spirit wasn't driven by that, and wasn't dependent upon that. He just wished he had the cash to go to medical school.
When I was young, you went to school, dealt with your friends and drama, went home, did your homework, went to bed, and started over the next day. But that social interaction that happens at school doesn't end now - it goes until the minute you go to bed and starts again when you wake up.
The huge advantage of boarding school is that it throws you into the social fire. Every social interaction I've had since then has been a million times easier. Literally, ever since then, it's all been child's play.
In the state of Wisconsin it's mandated that teachers in the social sciences and hard sciences have to start giving environmental education by the first grade, through high school.
It's critical that children spend time before they arrive in school in a warm, attractive and inclusive environment, where they can learn through play, master social skills and prepare for formal schooling.
In a world that places a growing premium on social skills, education systems need to do much better at fostering those skills systematically across the school curriculum.
Since my retirement, I've spent a lot of time trying to help the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina. A society like this just can't afford an uneducated underclass of citizens.
When I came to New York, I was really awkward. I went to military academy for high school, so I didn't have the socialization that most kids do. When I got here, I was five years behind everybody. Talking to women was weird for me.
Girls are almost always socialized to be perfect: 'Smile, do well in school, don't take too many risks.'
While I was growing up in Flushing, Queens, we socialized exclusively with other Chinese immigrants. I was forbidden to make contact with nonapproved, non-Chinese peers outside school. That was fine with me.
I grew up attending a Conservative day school, Solomon Schechter, until I was about 14, and going to a Reconstructionist synagogue.
When I was in grad school, I had to admit I hadn't read Toni Morrison. My teacher, the novelist Colum McCann, said I had to. I read 'Beloved' and 'Song of Solomon.' Pretty incredible.
You couldn't keep me out of the school plays, the song and dance skits.
My initial training was on the keyboard - mainly the great American songbook. In junior high, during the day, I was a classical clarinetist, but after school, I played New Orleans jazz and big-band music.
For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.
